SPRINGFIELD (Illinois Watchdog) — Snowplow
drivers, state troopers, prison guards and Gov. Pat Quinn (and his
spokesmen) are apparently just about all the state government
Illinois needs.

CLOSE ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT: Illinois' roads are mostly plowed.

In the grasp of a "polar vortex," Illinois closed state government
offices and told all nonessential government workers to stay home.

"We said to all of those in critical response, 'You gotta be here,'"
Quinn said at an apparently critical news conference in Chicago on
Monday. "My job is to be here when people really need our help. ... I
think it's important that our government be here when people need
us."

But that begs the question, who is a nonessential government
worker?

Thousands of people who answer phones in the massive state
bureaucracy were told to stay home. Same with the folks who sell
license plates and the people who run Illinois' universities. Even
the folks implementing Obamacare got a day off because they are not
needed.

The danger from the winter storm that has frozen the United States
is real. Illinois' Department of Transportation spent the weekend
plowing miles of interstates. The Illinois National Guard was
deployed to help stranded drivers, and the Illinois State Police have
been trying to help keep the roads safe and clear.